Accidental Exposure
by Murron
Summary: Most times the scenario you imagined didn't come true anyway. Most times it was worse.


**Title**: _Accidental Exposure_  
**Author**: _Murron_  
**Rating**: PG  
**Summary**: _Most times the scenario you imagined didn't come true anyway. Most times it was worse._  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, no money, no bad intentions  
**Spoilers**: None to speak of. Set somewhere between _The Storm_ and _The Brotherhood_

**Author's Note:** This is what happens when _**eretria**_ releases a plot bunny. During the story's progress she was once more muse, second brain and faithful beta :).

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**Accidental Exposure**

From a certain altitude the desert was an awesome sight. Nothing but cracked rock as far as the eye could see. Against the leaden sky the sooty dunes looked like an ocean of lava turned into stone. The view reminded Aiden of the Perry Rhodan books he'd read in seventh grade. Man, he'd loved those. Lunchbags had changed hands so he could complete his collection.

"Major Sheppard, this is Ford. Do you copy?"

There was a moment's silence, then the major's voice came crackling through the comm.

"_Yeah, I can hear you_." Not exactly the strict military code you'd expect. Aiden perked up immediately. Did he or didn't he detect an underlining strain in the major's tone? "_Where are you?_"

"We're ten minutes out and closing."

There was something wrong all right. It was a gut feeling, but Aiden had learned to trust those. Right now he waited for the order to bring out the guns. Shoot this, blow that up, leave a crater the size of Detroit. It had become routine and Aiden would've expected no less.

What the major asked instead was: "_Is Teyla with you?_"

Ford blinked, not sure if he'd heard correctly. Teyla? "No, Sir. She stayed with the river folk."

When the major didn't speak at once, Aiden ventured a tentative push. "What about Dr. McKay? Is he . . .?"

"_He's indisposed_." Okay, there Major Sheppard clearly failed to keep irritation out of his voice.

"How'd the negotiations go?" Aiden asked carefully.

Silence at the other end. Then, "_Not so good_."

The answer was clipped in a way that did nothing to ease Aiden's worry. "You all right, Sir?"

"_Yea-ah_ ." Another pause. "_Just . . . hurry_."

"Roger that."

Aiden leaned back in his seat with a frown while Stackhouse cast him a quizzical look from the controls. Aiden shrugged. Better not to visualise the things ahead. Most times the scenarios you imagined didn't come true anyway.

Most times it was worse.

Down on the planet's surface, the panorama was less magnificent. What looked sublime from above, was little more than an endless gravel pit on the bottom.

"Rodney."

Light was fading, even though it was not yet late in the day. Or couldn't be late. There was no way of telling.

"Rodney!"

John crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared down at the man on the ground. This was getting ridiculous.

_Getting? _That's_ a good one_.

"Get lost," Rodney growled from the pit of his folded arms.

"Ford's on his way," John announced.

Rodney's reaction was quick and fierce. "Yes? You've better told him to look the other way or the boy will be scarred for life."

"You wound me."

"No such luck."

John snorted and turned aside. His gaze swept the deserted plains and rocky dunes. There was nothing but scree and stone shards from here to the horizon. At least Stackhouse would have no troubles finding a spot to land.

John idly scratched his chest, regarding their bleak environs. It could be worse. It could be raining.

As if some higher power was privy to his thoughts, the wind chose that moment to pick up speed. A particular icy breeze rolled across the plain, rattling the branches of the dead tree above their heads.

John watched the twigs quiver with fatalistic calm. Goose bumps covered every inch of his skin, crawling up the back of his neck and down his arms.

"I never gonna live that down," Rodney muttered at his feet.

John sighed.

How'd negotiations go?

There was a question . . .

"That was mighty good thinking," John remarked sourly. Rodney didn't reply, but John didn't need him to, anyway. "Best idea ever," he continued. "Speed up negotiations _my ass_."

Rodney fixed him with an arctic glare. "Well, we could have stuck to your plan, but, oh my, you didn't have one."

"I tend to think before I charge."

"Sure," Rodney sneered, "and I'm the Lord of Humility." John refused further commentary. This wasn't worth his dignity. Or what remained of it.

He turned away and sought out the camp's gathering. Maybe two dozen natives had flocked to the largest tent. In the midst of the crowd, the shaman was flapping his hands in front of the chief's face. If the little man gestured any more wildly, he was going to knock off his own head cloth. Dangling beads and all.

What a godforsaken fucked-up place this was. It pissed him off, wrecked his chi and smelled of goat. A fly settled on John's forehead and he jerked his head impatiently. At his side, Rodney tilted his chin.

"I only meant to help," he said.

"By shaving their holy marmot."

"He was already shaving it," Rodney hissed.

John whirled around, eyes blazing.

"He was _clipping _hairs from the rat's coat. They weave it into their blankets for luck. One fucking hair per blanket."

Rodney pressed his lips together and stared stoically ahead. John, restraints blown and happily so, barged on. "Of course, that was before the reincarnation of Einstein got out his ladyshave."

Rodney shot him a venomous glare, and John narrowed his eyes in turn. Those were sandbox tactics, but what the hell. They'd already hit the bottom. As if that hadn't been their main theme all along.

It was not like Rodney had messed up a successful trade negotiation. Far from it. They'd had a hard time to begin with. Ogren's people were nomads, a distrustful bunch who kept to themselves. They had, however, a reputation as gifted goat herders and there were some bawdy jokes going round the settled river folk. No question, but the Ogren Tribe was a tad odd.

No one ever seemed to smile, they did not speak unless it was absolutely necessary, and there were goats everywhere: on the meadows, at the fountains, in the tents. The herdsmen cared for them as if they'd birthed them. For some reason, they also worshipped a fat shaggy rodent.

When Rodney and John had arrived at the camp, they'd been allowed to stay, but what welcome they received lacked any trace of enthusiasm. For one day and a far too long morning they'd haggled with chief Ogren, trying to trade Athosian crop for cheese and hides. Yet every time they seemed close to an agreement, Ogren had drawn back, retreating into silence or the counsel of his tribe. Around noon that day, John had been about ready to give up. Rodney, disgusted by the idea that this trek into the pit of so-called civilisation had been in vain, refused to surrender.

In a rarely seen attempt to break the ice, Rodney had joined a bony little man who'd been at pains to shear a hamster of unusual size. Or so it looked. Turned out the hamster was some sort of homestead deity and the scrawny chap was the tribe's resident shaman.

John's favourite scientist of the day, who couldn't grow a decent stubble if he watered it, had felt the samarithian need to demonstrate the merits of an electric razor. The shaman might have only clipped the hamster's fur. Rodney, methodical genius that he was, had turned the once-holy rodent into a first class Chihuahua.

John's mouth quivered. Admittedly, that picture of Rodney holding up the naked marmot would go down in his almanac of memorable events. So would the thunderous silence of the goggling tribe; the flustered shaman who hopped and shrieked like a character from a bad French movie. Definite elements of comic drama, those.

It was a downright pity that these nomads had absolutely no care for the burlesque.

John tried once more to tug at his bonds, but the cords that tied his wrists to his ankles held fast. One had to give it to Ogren's people: They might be an inbred lot of goat herders but they knew how to tie a knot. Good for them. _Good_ for them.

As he looked up, he found Rodney regarding his head with a measuring look.

"We could offer them your hair as compensation," Rodney mused. "There's enough to keep the rat warm until spring."

John spared what he hoped was a disgusted look. "Your mouth's moving, Rodney. Take care of it."

It was in that moment the tribe apparently decided on their fate. John watched as the group parted and all eyes – goat and human alike, it seemed – turned their way. Ogren marched briskly up to his captives, sandalled feet appearing and disappearing beneath the seam of his caftan.

"What do we do?" Rodney whispered.

"Don't panic."

"Very funny."

Ogren stopped in front of them and John got a good look at the old man's dust-coated toes.

"You desecrated the Guardian," the chief accused them, outrage and disbelief ringing in every single word he spoke. Rodney wriggled and looked up, not an easy move considered the way he was tied up.

"Not intentionally, we didn't," he stated in his let's-be-clear voice.

John squinted to watch Ogren's face darken. Rodney, oblivious or not giving a marmot's ass, prattled on. "You know, you could have marked your hamster as sacred in the first place. Put a sign in front of it. Write 'Don't Touch The Guardian'. There _are_ people who think that's a good idea."

_Damn _, John marvelled. Was it possible that the vein on Ogren's temple had started to pulse?

"Something in big red letters."

"Rodney . . ." John ground out between clenched teeth.

"I'm just saying," Rodney finished crossly. John had an idea that when the time came, Rodney would try to outtalk the Reaper. A small part of John admired this even in the thick of his anger. Rodney had nerves to go with his brain. It really was a shame that either got them into trouble more often than not.

John stared at Ogren, trying for nonchalance in the face of the unknown. Right now he had no clue what was going to happen and he refused to speculate.

"You will be punished for your blasphemy," Ogren hollered. "You will be banned from our pastures."

_Oh no_, John thought wryly. _Just when this began to feel like home_.

Ogren said a good deal more, all about a desert and shameful exile, but John really only got the last part of their sentence.

"And as you have bared the Guardian's with blades, we will now bare you."

John felt the sudden urge to touch his hair. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rodney pull his legs as close to his body as possible. There were, after all, other things that could be chopped off. Plenty of possibilities here. John had a second of sickening realisation before Ogren finished his bit.

"Shaman," the old man called back over his shoulders, "get the shears."

As Beadhead scuttled over with a pair of gigantic hedge clippers, John made a silent oath. If they survived this and his hair didn't, Rodney would suffer.

They didn't snip off his hair. Nor any other vital part for that matter. They even left them with knives and a radio. All things considered, they'd come off comparatively cheap. That's what John thought, though he and Rodney did have a clash of opinions on the matter.

"Come on, Rodney," John said, looking once more down at the human ball of utter misery, also known as Rodney McKay. The Head of Science clutched his bare knees with ferocious despair, crouching in the shade of a rock for all that it was worth.

"Come on," John repeated, "are you a man or a marmot?"

The flood of insults _that_ triggered was truly remarkable. With a slow grin, John turned his face up to the sky.

"There's our ride," he said, ignoring the endless, warbling splutter of Rodney's scorn.

Aiden and Stackhouse had seen it from the cockpit, of course. Seen it – but believed it? Hardly.

When the jumper touched ground, Aiden remained for another minute in his seat. He counted the seconds. Mustered a deadpan expression. It was either that, or succumb to the looming gales of laughter. If that happened, the major would shoot him as soon as he got close to a gun. Which, on second thought, he might do anyway. Sometimes you didn't want the witnesses to live, that was a truth as naked as there ever was . . .

_Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty_. Aiden rose and left the cockpit, carefully avoiding Stackhouse's gaze.

Taking another breath, he squared his shoulders and stepped out of the jumper, ready to face a full monty Major Sheppard.

Once Aiden got off the ramp, the major strolled over, apparently unmindful of the gravel beneath his bare feet. Aiden focused his gaze on the major's face. No power in the verse would get him to look down. None.

"Sir . . .?"

"Anything you want to ask?" John asked amiably enough.

"No Sir." One corner of his mouth twitched. He couldn't help it.

"Good then." John smiled and headed for the jumper. "Be a good boy and fetch a blanket for Dr. McKay."

"Yes Sir."

Turning, he caught a glimpse of McKay, cowering behind a ridiculously small rock. Done up in his birthday suit, that's what his grandma would say. Aiden had an intuition that if he wanted to escape death by poisoned coffee, he'd better be thinking of something real sad ASAP.

_finis_


End file.
